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by Vadim Rizov

Most Lars von Trier films are about the arrogance of males who think they know everything, yet are supremely fatuous in their advice. In other words, most of Lars von Trier"s movies are about himself. Epidemic and The Five Obstructions both foreground one "Lars von Trier" (playing himself) as an arrogant, know-it-all blowhard who, come final scene, gets his comeuppance. Similar roles are occupied in The Kingdom (by Dr. Stig, who almost certainly would"ve gotten smacked down in part 3 had actor Ernst-Hugo Järegård lived long enough to complete the projected trilogy), David Morse in Dancer in the Dark (who pedantically advises Bjork all the way up to her execution) and Tom Edison Jr. (Paul Bettany) in Dogville. Not least in this tradition is Antichrist"s He (Willem Dafoe), who is all of those characters recapped: a man offering advice way beyond his pay grade, only to find himself shot down with extreme physical vengeance.

That physical pain was Antichrist"s main selling point in theatrical release; in the UK, distributor Artificial Eye upped the ante by marketing it as straight horror fare, a financial calculation that paid off. Antichrist isn"t a horror movie, though it has both squeamish torture-porn moments and supernatural grotesquerie to spare. Listening to what von Trier says during press conferences is always a tricky proposition, so ignore his (incredibly entertaining) proclamation that "I am the best film director in the world" and focus in on the real disclosure: the film emerged from two years of depression and was made as treatment. Antichrist has a manic-depressive structure, its operatic, lush black-and-white opening followed by about one hour of boredom leavened with occasional weirdness, brutally broken with by 25 minutes of straight-up torture, and capped off by an equally lush closer. The gear-switching has the feel of internal stock-taking and clearing.